


Death Rattle

by MalevolentReverie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Breeding Kink, Breylo I guess, Character Death, Darkfic, Death, Discussion of Abortion, Dominant Kylo Ren, Drug Addiction, F/M, Heavy Angst, Kylo is 36, Older Man/Younger Woman, Overdosing, Pregnancy, Rey is 16, Rey is pregnant w Ben’s baby, Smut, Submissive Rey (Star Wars), Teenage Pregnancy, Twins, Wakes & Funerals, ben is dead, breylo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:15:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27909595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentReverie/pseuds/MalevolentReverie
Summary: Rey is an advanced high schooler who is expecting with her gym teacher. He dies, and his mysterious twin brother takes his place.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 255
Kudos: 508





	1. agonal breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RumiReneeClarke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RumiReneeClarke/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Голос с того света](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29611071) by [Tersie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tersie/pseuds/Tersie)



Ben Solo dies on a sunny June afternoon.

No one calls Rey; no one pulls her aside. No one knows how much privacy would mean to her. They don’t know that she spent two days texting and calling him and worrying and panicking—because she’s sixteen, and he’s her gym teacher, and she’s pregnant with his baby.

Two days after Ben dies, the principal tells Rey’s homeroom, and she can’t react. She stares blankly at his messy handwriting still up on the white board and feels her chest caving in.

Then she feels nothing else.

♾

They were supposed to get married after graduation, which should be next year for Rey. She’s ‘advanced’. Smart. Kind of asocial and weird, but Ben was always her polar opposite in that regard, and he always balanced her out.

Now that’s all gone. She’s two months pregnant, alone, lying in her bed at her foster dad’s instead of snuggling with Ben in his tiny apartment.

Rey gazes at the cracked ceiling, too tired to cry anymore. She’s been crying for a week. She can’t even go to his funeral—can’t say goodbye. Now she’s going to have a baby alone and no one will know the father, because she won’t tarnish Ben’s name. She’s just like her mother. Alone, pregnant. Broke.

She rolls over, burying her face in the pillows. Now she’ll never go to college.

This is it. This is it. This is it.

♾

A week later Rey is throwing up in the girl’s bathroom on the first floor when she gets a call. She rinses her mouth out before answering, not bothering to hide her sniffles and coughs.

“Rey Niima?”

It’s a strange woman. Rey leans on the bathroom stall and nods, wiping her nose.

“Yes?” she croaks.

“I’m calling on behalf of Kylo Ren, Ben Solo’s older twin.”

“Wh-What?”

“He would like to invite you to the wake this coming Sunday.”

Wake? Rey blinks, rubbing her eyes as she slides down the side of the stall. Ben had a twin?

“But… but Ben didn’t have a—”

“A car will come by to pick you up around four in the afternoon. The driver will supply you with clothing appropriate for the wake.”

Before Rey can ask more questions, the woman hangs up.

♾

The sky opens up on Sunday morning, and Rey watches the rain pelt her window until the car from Kylo Ren arrives.

It’s a black Mercedes and looks really expensive. Unkar, her foster father, watches suspiciously from the dusty kitchen window as a tall man with red hair gets out and comes to the front door. Rey hangs back, wringing her hands and hiding under her baggy Plattsburgh hoodie from Ben. Ben didn’t know rich people.

Unkar lumbers out to the porch to pick up the clothes: a dress, stockings, and black flat shoes. He throws them inside, complaining about them while he does, and Rey quickly scoops them up.

“What’s this shit?” he spits.

“It’s—it’s from my friend.”

“What friend? You ain’t got any friends.”

He doesn’t follow her when she brings everything down the hall to her bedroom. Yes: generally, Rey doesn’t have friends. But she had Ben.

She changes into the long black dress that gives some extra space for her growing belly, and the comfy tights and wide black shoes. Whoever picked them must have known she’s pregnant. She looks nice. She’s never looked this nice, except when Ben got her a nice blue dress at Old Navy.

Unkar narrows his eyes when she leaves but doesn’t stop her. The red-headed guy is waiting next to the car with an umbrella, and he approaches to shield Rey. It’s fancy. He’s dressed in a black suit and wearing black shades like he’s in the FBI.

“Miss Niima,” he says. “My name is Armitage Hux—I’m an associate of Kylo Ren. I’ve been asked to bring you to Ben Solo’s wake.”

Normally Rey wouldn’t take risks like this. She doesn’t take risks. She likes planning and organizing and researching before trusting people.

But there’s a wide gaping hole in her chest where Ben used to be, and she can’t figure out how to fill it. She thought maybe the baby growing in her belly might expand far enough to ease the pain but nothing helps. Nothing makes it go away. It just hurts and hurts and hurts, and she can’t tell anyone about how bad it hurts.

So she smiles and nods and Hux open the passenger door. Maybe this will help.

♾

Ben’s wake is at a big funeral parlor and the parking lot is filled with cars. Hux parks and escorts Rey to the door and brings her in, and she’s lost in a swell of people dressed in black, and they’re dressed up and fancy and no one looks as sad as she feels.

It’s scary, but Hux sticks to her side. He brings her to the buffet in the side room and points to the food Kylo Ren wants her to eat—supposedly, Ben’s twin. Ben never mentioned a twin.

“Carrots,” Hux says. “For the baby.”

“Um… okay.”

“No deli meat or fish. Vegetables. You also need to start taking folic acid.”

She glances up at his hard stare and reddens, nodding. Jeez. Okay.

Rey munches on her snacks in a corner of the buffet room. She’s anxious to see Ben’s body and learn how he died—Google was no help—but she’s afraid to ask Hux or talk to anyone milling around. His body is here, so hopefully it wasn’t violent. It hurts to think of him dying and suffering through it.

It’s a nice wake, though. Some people are emotional. There’s a big picture of Ben grinning hanging in the main room over the casket and Rey can’t bear to look at it. She unfollowed him on Twitter and tried to add him back and sometimes sees the pending request and cries even more.

Hux doesn’t pressure her to move out to the wake when the service begins. He hangs nearby while she munches her carrots and tears roll down her cheeks and she can’t even go look at Ben’s body. He was always smiling. She can’t see him cold and stiff and lifeless when he was always—

“He wouldn’t want you to cry.”

Rey realizes she’s sobbing, but it stops immediately at the familiar voice. She turns, watery eyes wide, and sees a tall figure looming to her left. Her heart pounds and skips and threatens to leap out of her chest.

Ben has a twin. He never mentioned him, but Kylo Ren is standing right there, the spitting image of Ben with longer hair and a deep scowl and a pressed black suit. Ben never mentioned a twin but he hasn’t risen from the dead, so there’s no other explanation. Kylo is neat and stern and he doesn’t even look at her.

He adjusts his black tie. “Did she eat?”

“Yes, sir,” Hux replies. “A bit.”

“Fine. See she eats more.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kylo nods, and walks out into the ceremony. There’s a short woman speaking and she’s crying—she looks a bit like Ben and Kylo, and Rey wonders if she’s their mother. She isn’t sure. Ben said Rey would meet his mother after graduation.

Rey claps when Kylo walks up the stage. He nods and doesn’t smile in the least and flinches when his mother kisses his cheek. Maybe his mother.

Kylo grasps the edges of the podium. He clears his throat and pulls at his tie around his neck, and the big crowd watches in silence. Rey stares. Ben has a twin. And a mother. Ben had a life she wasn’t privy to, even though he always smiled after he was done fucking her, and she ran her fingers through his hair and he said he’d never lie to her.

Ben’s twin keeps his gaze on his speech.

“What can I possibly say about my brother?”


	2. reperfusion insult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is definitely not going to be 5 chapters LOL

Everyone filters out slowly into the rain after the wake. The parking lot becomes a sea of black umbrellas, and Rey hangs back under the awning with Hux lurking behind her. She didn’t look at Ben’s body. She can’t bear to.

She shivers, crossing her arms. It’s seventy-something degrees so she shouldn’t be cold, but she’s been cold ever since she found out Ben was dead. Cold, tired, paralyzed. Maybe she’s dead, too.

“You should say your goodbyes.”

Rey glances up. Kylo is standing beside her, hands in his pockets, steely dark eyes watching the crowd. He hasn’t cried once, but neither has she.

Rain falls in a sheet from the awning. She stares at Kylo and wishes she could delude herself into thinking he were Ben, just so this whole thing didn’t have to hurt so much. Same face, same nose, same pale skin, but that’s all there is; he’s just a hollow imitation.

His dark eyes wander down to her, waiting for an answer. Rey swallows the big lump in her throat.

“I can’t,” she mumbles. Her gaze falls to the pavement.

“You’re going to regret it. Ben avoided the casket at our father’s wake and always wished he hadn’t.”

Kylo’s voice isn’t like Ben’s, either. It _is_ , technically, but he’s so much stiffer and colder than Ben ever was.

Tears well up in her eyes as another crushing reality tilts the world a little further on its axis: she’ll never hear Ben’s voice again. He’ll never say her name again; never whisper it in her ear to wake her up for breakfast or laugh it when he’s teasing her after he picks her up from school.

Kylo ambles forward a few steps. “Bring her inside, Hux.”

Hux brings her inside. Kylo doesn’t come, and it’s a good thing, because Rey bursts into tears when she sees the picture of Ben again.

Her chest twists so hard she thinks it might burst open, and she covers her mouth as she comes close enough to see him lying in the casket. She chokes on a sob, because it looks like he’s just sleeping, the same way he used to look Sunday mornings when she would always wake up before him and just watch him for a while. He’s wearing a suit and she remembers their conversation two Sundays ago when she was running her hands through his hair talking about their wedding. _I’m not wearing a suit, Rey. Hate suits._

_Then what will you wear?_

_Shorts._

She remembers him laughing when she rolled her eyes, and she collapses on her knees next to the casket as she crumples under the weight of her grief.

♾

Hux gives Rey a box of tissues so she can keep crying alone in the black Mercedes. She peeled herself away from Ben’s body after half an hour but hasn’t stopped crying since, and she thought her tears had all run out.

How much more grief can she possibly feel? Where does it end? It’s like her chest is caving in; sometimes the pressure is so immense she can’t breathe, and sometimes her grief runs so wide and deep she can’t see any way out of it. She flounders and every once in a while she manages to float, then there’s a smell or a sound that reminds her of him, and the surface tension breaks.

There’s no end in sight. She’s going to drown.

The opposite passenger door opens. Rey sniffles and wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands as Hux gets into the driver’s seat at the same moment Kylo joins her in the back. He unbuttons his suit jacket without a glance at Rey.

“Nice of Ben to leave the family a parting gift,” Kylo says. He checks his watch. “Always the irresponsible shit head. Hux, bring us to the house. I trust you can handle fetching Miss Niima’s things from her… trailer park.”

“Sir.”

Rey blinks, shaking her head and sniffling. The car starts driving.

“Wait—where are we—”

“I assume you have the same pill habit Ben did? That stops today.”

“Pill habit? Ben didn’t have a—”

“I should have known the ‘woman’ he was dating was a child.” Kylo shakes his head and leans his arm on the door, glaring out the window. “He was always such a fuck-up.”

Rey stares for a minute before slowly looking down at her hands. Pill habit? Ben didn’t do drugs.

She isn’t sure where she’s going but she’s afraid to question it. Kylo is a little scary. He doesn’t say a word for the rest of the drive, just glowers out the window while Rey tries not to cry. Ben wasn’t a drug addict. He was nice to her, and he was smart and funny and really charming.

Maybe this is why he never mentioned having a twin. Kylo is not at _all_ charming.

Hux winds through the Catskills, not bothering to slow down for the rain. He comes upon a big black gate and as it slowly opens for them, Kylo heaves an irritated sigh. He’s texting someone.

“What’s the date for Rey’s check up, Hux?”

“Monday the sixteenth at nine, sir.”

“That’s the best Tiffany can do?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kylo scoffs. He holds his phone up to his ear as the car stops in front of the biggest house Rey has ever seen.

“Get me Doctor Eckel,” Kylo snaps as he gets out of the car. He slams the door shut.

She gets out of her side and stands there staring up in awe at the towering stone house. Mansion. It’s a mansion. It sprawls across the manicured lawn and there are colorful flowers growing in the front garden, all framing a big fountain with birds bathing in it. But the trees shroud the sides of the mansion, some dead and rotting, and it makes Rey’s spine tingle.

Hux drives off, and Rey awkwardly follows Kylo up the wide stone steps. He’s talking on the phone still and doesn’t acknowledge her.

“She should be seen this week,” he says. He pauses on the top step. “She’s sixteen.”

Kylo turns sharply to look at her. Rey practically jumps out of her skin.

“No, she isn’t having an abortion.” His eyes wander down to her belly and back up to her face. “Ben told me two weeks ago that she’s halfway through her first trimester, but she hasn’t seen a doctor yet.” Kylo rolls his eyes, turning away from Rey. “I would imagine he didn’t want to go to prison.”

He carries on toward the front door and Rey hurries after him.

She shuffles inside the enormous house, eyes wide. It’s like one of those expensive hotels: the floors are marble or maybe granite and the ceiling soars way high above her head. A big staircase curves up to the second floor in the center of the foyer and Kylo starts up those steps. He snaps his fingers and Rey hastens after him again.

“So you’ll see her tomorrow?” Kylo nods. “Good. We’ll be there.” He puts his phone in his pocket. “Doctor Eckel will see you tomorrow morning.”

“For what?”

He stops so suddenly that Rey almost bumps into him. His eyebrows are raised and he just stares down at her until her cheeks burn and she looks at the floor. His footsteps move away and she follows, eyes still downcast. Jeez.

Kylo shows her to a room with a white door that matches all the others in the hall. He opens it and motions impatiently until Rey shuffles inside.

It’s bigger than Ben’s entire apartment. There’s a big bed with white sheets under a wide window with white curtains, and the walls are the same bland beige as the rest of the house. Everything matches and nothing is out of place, and Rey can’t help but think how much Ben would hate it.

“This weekend I’m going to clean out his apartment. Leia will be there, so it’s best you don’t come.”

Rey peels her eyes away from the big TV on the wall. “Leia?”

“Our mother. Ben only told me about the baby.”

“…Oh. Okay.”

When was he going to tell the rest of his family? It makes sense, kind of, but it hurts knowing she was being hidden, like she was an embarrassment.

“It was nothing personal,” Kylo says, maybe reading the hurt on her face. “Early pregnancies often don’t take. Most people wait before telling family.”

“Right.” Rey nods, first rubbing her stomach, then awkwardly crossing her arms. “You’re right.”

“I’ll tell her soon. She needs time.”

Rey keeps nodding. Right. That’s fine. Everyone needs time.

There’s a long pause. She’s never been good at filling empty silence but Ben always was. Apparently Kylo isn’t good at filling empty silence, either.

“Thanks for, um…” She gestures vaguely. “Bringing me to the wake.”

“You’re welcome. Hux is going to speak to your foster father to let him know you’ll be moving out.”

Moving out? “Moving out?”

Kylo nods, already walking through the door. Her heart skips a beat as she briefly thinks he looks just like Ben—but Ben would never wear a suit, and she doesn’t think Kylo would be caught dead in sweatpants.

“You’re pregnant with my niece or nephew.” He looks at his watch as he closes the door behind him. “What else am I supposed to do with you?”

It clicks shut. Rey stares at it for a long minute before turning to look at her new room. Ben would definitely hate it.

♾

There isn’t much for Rey to leave behind. Unkar only ever tolerated her presence and used the checks from the state to buy his beer, and she’s never been good at making friends. She filled all the empty spots in her life with studying and reading and tried to pretend she didn’t want or need anything else.

Then she met Ben.

He was the temporary gym teacher while Mrs. Carr was out on maternity leave. The boys thought he was funny and the girls thought he was hot, and not one person in the entire high school had a bad thing to say about him. He was never short or mean; competitive, but a gracious loser. Energetic. Very energetic.

Rey would watch him sometimes, but never noticed him watching her back. She admired from afar until Poe Dameron pegged her hand so hard with a basketball that he almost broke her entire nail off.

It hurt. She had cried and it was really embarrassing. Ben took her hand to check and she remembers how nice he smelled and how rough his fingers were.

“Does this hurt?” he had murmured, curling her middle finger up.

“N-No.”

“Good.”

Then he turned her hand so she was flipping off Poe. Everyone laughed, including her, and she remembers how nice Ben’s smile was and the way he looked back at her and winked. He was really charming. He could get everyone to smile and he was never angry.

After that he sat her on the bench for the rest of class and they spent most of it talking about movies. He gave her a list of things she had to watch.

“I mean—you _have_ to see _Reservoir Dogs_ ,” Ben had said, chewing on his whistle. He wasn’t paying attention to the basketball game as far as Rey could tell but always knew when to blow the whistle.

“Isn’t that really violent?”

“A little bit.” He laughed and reached in his pocket. “Tell you what—just text me if you’re scared. I’m usually up.”

Her heart pounded. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Ben laughed. He almost always laughed.

“Just don’t go telling everyone and it’ll be fine.”

She texted him that night and he responded—and within a month, Rey was pregnant.


	3. exsanguinating trauma

“You’re just about through your first trimester, Rey. Isn’t that exciting?”

The lights in the exam room are harsh and hot. Dr. Eckel is nice—she doesn’t seem judgmental, even when she asks Rey some questions she clearly doesn’t have the right answers for. But it’s hot in here. Claustrophobic.

Rey nods, smiling faintly. Her ultrasound is over and her blood is drawn: Dr. Eckel told her what everything was for, but she barely remembers most of it. Something about a nasal bone and Down syndrome and something about a nuchal… something. Everyone tells Rey she’s smart but she has a hard time following what the doctor is talking about.

Dr. Eckel wheels to her counter to type some things in. She’s young and has red hair and freckles. She’s also wearing a big engagement ring.

“Those blood results should come back by the end of the week,” she says, “but everything looks good from the ultrasound. Do you have any questions for me?”

“No… I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Well if you think of anything, feel free to call.”

Kylo is waiting outside the office, hands in his pockets, sunglasses on. He makes a motion with his fingers for Hux to pull the car up to the door. It’s warm today but there’s a nice breeze that gives Rey goosebumps.

“Everything in order?” Kylo asks.

“She said the baby looks fine. Just waiting for the blood test results.”

“What is it? Male? Female?”

“They can’t tell for another couple weeks, I think.”

He scoffs like that doesn’t make sense. He opens the door for her when the car stops and Rey climbs in. At least school is out for the summer. She won’t have to go back to that awful place for a couple months and be reminded of what she’s lost.

♾

_Reservoir Dogs_ sucked.

Rey watched it a few days after Ben told her to and resisted the urge to text him and tell him it sucked. It was too bloody and confusing—she had no idea what was happening for most of the movie. She’d just stick to comedies and Disney.

But texting him felt weird, so she waited until Monday. He probably didn’t _really_ want her texting him. He was just being nice.

She lied about having her period to avoid basketball and sat next to Ben on the bleachers. He blew his whistle every now and then to tell Poe to take it easy or to tell Kaydel to move faster, and Rey examined her hands. She didn’t want to be weird.

“You didn’t text me.”

She looked up. He was watching the game, bent over with his arms folded across his knees. He looked over at her and smiled, raising his eyebrows. It made her heart skip a beat.

“Sorry,” she said. “It was… kind of bad.”

Ben burst out laughing. A couple people glanced up at them but he didn’t notice.

“Bad?!” he echoed, incredulous.

“Yeah! It was really violent!”

He kept laughing, shaking his head as he returned to watching the game. People stared so he blew his whistle and snapped at them to get back to it.

Ben leaned back, resting his long arms on the bleacher behind him. He eyed Rey and laughed again, and shook his head again, and she huffed.

“Should’ve texted me,” he sighed.

“Well I didn’t think you were serious.” She scowled and crossed her arms. “And I didn’t want to bother you with dumb questions.”

“I’m a substitute gym teacher. Dumb is my middle name.”

He snickered at that. Rey frowned but didn’t answer, and they watched the game in silence for a while.

Ben drummed his fingers on the bleacher. He clicked his tongue, then reached in his pocket and took out his phone. Sneakers squeaked across the gym as he typed something out on it—Poe pushed Sam Wright but Ben didn’t notice or blow his whistle.

Rey’s phone vibrated in her back pocket. She blinked, pausing before reaching back for it.

> Hi, it’s me, The Dumbass.

Ben was already looking at her. He grinned, wide and boyish and clearly very proud of himself.

“You can make that my name label… thing.” He waved dismissively, finally noticing a fight starting on the gym floor. He rose to his feet. “That’s what my family usually calls me, anyway.”

She watched him jog down the bleachers and walk out to pull Poe off Sam. Rey stared at Ben’s back for another beat before looking back down at his text.

Well—if he insisted.

♾

Kylo spends most of his time holed up in his study working, leaving Rey to wander the mansion and grounds by herself. She doesn’t mind. The peace and quiet is nice and there’s plenty to see outside. It distracts her from missing Ben.

Hux follows her from time to time but he stops and gives her space whenever she glares at him over her shoulder. He tells her Kylo works in ‘sales’ but doesn’t go into much more detail.

“Medical equipment,” Hux says, vaguely when she asks again.

“Like MRI machines?”

“Sure.”

Suspicious.

But the backyard is gigantic and manicured and lined with towering old birch trees and blue spruce and maybe maple trees, but Rey is no expert. She wears some of her new clothes and takes off her shoes to feel the cool grass on her bare feet, pausing by a stone bench just to close her eyes and breathe.

She sits, shifting on the scratchy stone and crossing her legs. There’s a small pond down the hill a ways and an inground pool that’s sparkling blue. Everything is clean and neat and nothing is out of place: not a stone in the stonework, not a blade of grass on the lawn, not a leaf in the pool. Kylo is nothing like Ben.

It’s good, probably. Rey takes a deep, cleansing breath through her mouth. She shouldn’t entertain any fantasies of ever having him again. It’s probably not healthy to think—

“I’ve arranged for a counselor to speak with you.”

She blinks, startling when she sees Kylo standing a handful of feet away. He’s wearing a navy blue dress shirt and dark slacks, hands in his pockets, gaze steely and cold like usual. A breeze rustles his black hair, sunlight glimmering on the fringe.

Rey tries not to be rude. “I don’t need one, but—”

“Yes, you do.”

His glare is hard. He stands much straighter than Ben ever did; much more rigid. It’s intimidating.

“No thank you,” she says curtly.

“Her name is Amilyn. She’s a family friend.”

“I said no thank you.”

“She’ll come by Friday afternoon.”

Rey clenches her jaw. Kylo is unmoving and unblinking and even after a week of living with him, she finds him petrifying. He’s never around, even for dinner. She usually eats alone in the huge dining room while Hux waits in the far corner.

But she can’t let him bowl her over and control her. She _shouldn’t._ He’s never even around—and he’s making her eat bland, gross food.

“I said no,” Rey snaps.

“If only you’d had the wherewithal so say no to my brother.”

Her eyes widen. She leans back, irritation crystallizing into anger. Kylo rolls his tongue inside his cheek but his expression doesn’t change. No wonder Ben never told her about him. He’s fucking awful.

Her throat tenses up thinking of Ben. She crosses her arms a little tighter over her chest to stop the tears.

“He loved me,” Rey manages, voice only cracking slightly. “Stop talking about him that way.”

“He was a womanizing addict that tore a path of hedonistic destruction wherever he stumbled. Ben never loved anyone besides himself, least of all some impossibly _bland_ teenage girl.”

“Fuck you.”

Kylo raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t smile or laugh like Ben would have, but his mask is broken, and now he’s scowling. He glares and Rey glares back.

He huffs, shaking his head and turning away.

“Yes, fuck me—” He turns back, sharp and irate, pointing a finger at Rey. “Fuck me for taking responsibility and making sure you get medical care and food and a home. I’m just stuck cleaning up Ben’s fucking messes like I always do, and this one comes with an eighteen year commitment.” Kylo rapidly shifts and clenches his jaw. He shoves his hand back in his pocket. “But at least Ben had his fun.”

He starts walking away. Rey glowers at his broad back for another minute before she gets up and follows.

Her bare feet move quickly through the grass, heart pounding. Kylo turns on his heel before she can shove him, and he stalks back toward her, making Rey frantically backpedal. She trips over her own two feet in her haste to escape but Kylo catches her around the waist before she falls.

It takes a couple seconds until she’s steady. Rey grips his forearm, pulse fluttering, head spinning. He doesn’t even _smell_ like Ben. Ben always wore Axe. She stole some for him once or twice.

“Are you alright?” Kylo asks. She nods but he doesn’t let go. He’s holding her upper arms. “Your lips are white. Have you had any water? Anything to eat?”

She nods again. Nausea comes crawling up her throat out of nowhere and she turns her head but thankfully doesn’t vomit. She’s dizzy—she didn’t eat breakfast because it was another tasteless omelet, and she only had a few sips of water. Maybe that was a bad idea.

“Liar,” Kylo mutters. “Come sit.”

He leads her to the stone bench and helps her sit. Rey catches her breath, tilting her head back to take deep breaths through her nose the way Ben told her to.

Quiet follows. Kylo keeps his arms crossed and looks ahead and the nausea and ringing ears fade away. Birds flutter by overhead: a blue jay, then a cardinal. The cardinal perches on a low branch and watches Rey, tilting his head from side to side.

“I think you’ll benefit from speaking to Amilyn, Rey.”

She doesn’t look away from the cardinal. It hops to another branch, twittering.

Kylo clears his throat when she doesn’t respond for another handful of minutes. He claps his hands on his knees and it sends the cardinal skittering back a couple branches deeper into the recesses of the spruce.

“Perhaps Ben did care about you in some… strange way. You’re still a teenager and he was a man pushing forty.”

“So?”

“ _So_ …” Kylo hesitates, strained when he speaks again. “That isn’t a healthy dynamic—it isn’t something I want you to carry into adulthood. You may look back on him in fifteen years and regret it and resent it. So I think you should talk to someone.”

She’s never going to regret it. Rey shrugs, and she heads inside with Kylo to eat lunch. No one is going to convince her she made a mistake.

♾

> You up? It’s Mr. S 
> 
> yeah  
>  **Read** 11:03 PM
> 
> Any chance you want to go grab dinner with me?
> 
> right now??
> 
> Yeah 🥸 Incognito-like.  
> I know a good place
> 
> really?  
> are u sure  
> this is rey niima u know
> 
> I know. 😉🤠😎
> 
> i don’t have money i’m sorry  
>  **Read** 11:06 PM
> 
> I got you. I’ll be there in 15.  
> Incognito-like 🥸
> 
> wait ur coming to my house???
> 
> Yeah just have to find my fucking wallet  
> We’re watching Res dogs after so pack a bag  
> Bring a toothbrush
> 
> idk if that’s a good idea  
> are u drunk or something
> 
> I come up with my best ideas when I’m drunk 🤠  
> Pack your bag Larry Bird 🏀
> 
> i’m only getting dinner then u have to bring me home also are u sure?? i’m sorry sir i’m confused
> 
> Don’t worry Rey. I’ve got you. 😇

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @malreverie  
> carrd: malevolentreverie.carrd.co


End file.
